Book Excerpt

With the book countdown getting close to zero (Amazon is now shipping the books), I thought I would offer a short excerpt. This was just a little scene in New York, but in some ways I think it represents the core of this book. And Buck.

We were in New York in summertime. It was Friday afternoon – Buck calls that “The crazy time” – and the city was a frantic mess of car horns, jackhammers and frustration. People just looked angry. You could see they anticipated the line to the tunnel, cars cutting them off, middle fingers, standstill traffic on a bridge as too many other people tried to escape the drone and drama of the city for the calm of Jersey, Connecticut or Long Island. Buck had finished the last of his interviews. He walked into an elevator going down in the Time-Life Building. A sad young woman stood in the corner. She did not look sad by conventional standards. She had not been crying. No, she looked sad in that distinctively New York City way, the haggard sadness of someone who works in an office too big, pays too much for rent, sleeps in too small a bedroom and spends too much time getting shoved in and out of a subway car. “There’s nothing like New York lonely,” Buck had told a reporter earlier that day, and that’s how she looked: New York lonely. When Buck O’Neil walked into the elevator, she stared at the ground and tried to make herself small.

He said: “I’m Buck O’Neil, what’s your name?”

She looked away and pretended not to hear, as if Buck had asked for change or promised salvation. Buck would not be ignored. “I’m Buck O’Neil, what’s your name?” She glanced up. She looked sadder than before. She spoke softly and said something that sounded like “Swathy.”

“Swathy,” Buck said. “You are a beautiful young lady.”

She met his eyes. The elevator beeped rhythmically as we dropped floor by floor. Buck talked.

“You’re a lucky woman to live in this big city,” he said. “I would have loved to live in New York when I was your age. I know you must be doing very well for yourself.” She stood up straighter and leaned closer to him as he spoke. When the elevator reached the bottom floor, it bucked for a second, and Buck stumbled. She reached out to keep him from falling. Then he held out his arms. “Give it up,” he said. Swathy jumped into his arms. She hugged him tight for a long time. Then Swathy bounded out of the elevator and into the city’s rush hour. In a thirty-floor descent, her sad look had evaporated like a rain puddle in Central Park.